FIVE

Lieutenant Arnaldo Pedroso was a short, tubby man with the build of a middleweight Suma wrestler, a broad, flat face neatly divided almost in the middle by a hairline mustache, a ready smile, and sparkling black eyes. His thinning hair scarcely went with his almost Indian features, but he avoided any adverse comment on this by wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat which he seldom took off. It was rumored that even his wife had never seen him without the hat in place, but this was actually not the truth. She had once told Da Silva, with twinkling eyes, that on their honeymoon he had taken it off.

He was wearing a wrinkled seersucker suit as he came across the apron to meet their plane; it seemed at first glance to be too large for him, mainly because his pockets perpetually sagged under the weight of all the things he habitually carried in them. Lieutenant Pedroso did not believe in encumbering himself with a briefcase; pockets were more easily filled and emptied, and besides, it was impossible to forget them in a bar or a restaurant. He came hustling across the apron in his half-rolling style, his pockets swinging freely from side to side, and grasped Da Silva in the fervent abraço of the Brazilian.

“Zé!”

“Arnaldo!”

“It’s good to see you.”

“And you.”

Da Silva returned the bear hug. Pedroso swung around to Wilson, his arms still half-outstretched, and then allowed them to drop to his side. Not only was he unacquainted with this one, but the black look on the face of his friend’s companion did not seem to encourage any overfriendly gesture. Da Silva, reading the mind of the other, held back a smile and performed the introductions. Pedroso nodded, his small black eyes alive.

“Ah! Senhor Wilson! When I last saw Zé in Rio, he told me of you and some of the—adventures? Exploits? The things you have done together.” His voice clearly showed how much he would have liked to have been a part of those adventures. He paused as if reconsidering the propriety of the embrace, and then changed his mind, since the dark look on the face of the Americano had not abated a bit. His voice became businesslike as he turned and began to lead the two men toward the building.

“Well, Zé? What’s this all about?” He held up a hand, negating his own question. “Wait. You’ll tell me over coffee.”

Da Silva glanced down at the straw hat. “Any word on this Martin?”

“Nothing. Yet.” He led them to the curved stairway leading to the second-floor restaurant; they mounted it and found a table in one corner overlooking the long runways and the activity of wheeling planes below. Pedroso hissed for a waiter and ordered three cafezinhos, without which conversation in Brazil is virtually impossible. He leaned back. “So, Zé? What’s the story?”

Da Silva looked at him steadily. “Our orders are to pick up this American, this James Martin. For stealing some negotiable bonds, among which were some Brazilian bearer bonds owned by our government. He left New York last night by Varig with passage booked through to Rio, but for some reason he left the plane at Recife.” He shrugged. “That’s about it.”

“Not quite,” Wilson said. “Martin isn’t guilty. The whole thing is a mistake.”

Beneath the wide-brimmed hat Pedroso’s eyebrows went up. He glanced from one face to the other and then nodded, satisfied that at last he had determined the reason for the apparent coldness between the two men. He returned his attention to Wilson. “A mistake, Mr. Wilson?”

“Martin was an old friend of Wilson’s,” Da Silva said. His voice was completely expressionless. “They were in the army together. Wilson doesn’t feel that his friend Martin is the type who would steal.” He returned to the matter in hand, dismissing Wilson’s argument as unimportant. “So you have no word of him?”

Pedroso started to shake his head and then paused. “Just this.” He reached into an inside pocket of his voluminous jacket and fumbled among the wad of papers there, peering under his arm to select the right one. He finally produced a green booklet. “This was found on the beach a few hundred yards away from the attaché case. It was stuffed under the edge of a jangada there, but not under the sand.”

Wilson almost snatched it from his hand. It was an American passport. He flipped it open, staring at the familiar smiling portrait, at the well-known signature. “It’s Jimmy’s passport!” His voice hardened as he stared at Da Silva’s emotionless face. “Do you still think the whole thing was a fake?”

Da Silva reached over and took the passport from Wilson. He flipped through the pages, studied the visa for Brazil, and then turned back to the first page, noting the issue date. “It’s new,” he said quietly. “Issued just a month ago.” He looked up at Wilson. “Do you know if he ever had a previous passport? That might have expired?”

Wilson shook his head. “I don’t know, and I can’t see what difference it would make in any event.” He swung back to Pedroso. “Have you checked all the hospitals?”

“Sim, senhor. Also all the doctors in town. None report a wounded man. We’ve also checked all the other places he might be.” His voice subtly indicated that the estrangeiro owed him an apology for having implied a lack of efficiency on the part of the Recife police. “With no results, I am sorry to say.”

A waiter came bearing three tiny cups of coffee and placed one before each man. Da Silva waited until the man had left and then leaned forward. “What steps have you taken to prevent his leaving the city?”

Pedroso picked up his cup and downed the contents in one practiced sip; he set the empty cup back on the table. “Between the arrival of Flight 906, which came in at fifteen minutes after midnight last night, and the time of your call to me this morning, there were three plane arrivals but only one departure, and he was not on that. No ships cleared the harbor. Roads, of course—” His shrug clearly indicated that one did not leave Recife by road, not if they were going anywhere. “Still, we’ve checked the bus lines, and the barreira police will keep an eye out for him. And our men at the docks, of course, have been instructed …”

“Quite a bit of work for your men,” Wilson said sarcastically, “just for one criminal, isn’t it?”

The face under the brim of the straw hat looked surprised to hear such a statement from one trained in police work. “Not for just one criminal, Senhor Wilson. I wish it were for just one criminal, but there are many we are looking for. For many crimes. Mr. Martin is just one more.”

“But you’re sure he could not have left,” Da Silva said.

“As sure as I can be.” Pedroso’s finger reached out to tap the passport still in Da Silva’s hand. “And there’s this, of course.”

Wilson’s voice was hard. “Jimmy may still be in the city, but he may not still be alive.” He leaned forward, his eyes intent on the short lieutenant. “How much blood was found on the beach?”

Pedroso shrugged. “On a sandy beach it’s very hard to say. Not that the tide struck it; the reef and the lagoon prevent that, and the briefcase and the stain were too far up on the sand. And the briefcase was dry. But on sand …” He turned to Da Silva with a curious frown. “Zé, everything indicates that this Martin was attacked on the beach; I’m forced to agree with Senhor Wilson on that. But it’s very evident that you don’t seem to think so. Why?”

Da Silva’s fingers played with the small cafezinho cup before him and then pushed it aside as serving no purpose in formulating his answer. He lit a cigarette and stared at the burned match a moment before raising his eyes.

“Let me explain what I think. Here is a man who stole some bonds and ran away to Brazil, with the ostensible purpose of coming to Rio. He buys a ticket to Rio openly, the police have no trouble at all in discovering his route and the flight he takes; he even advises a friend he hasn’t seen or heard from in years that he is coming to Rio. But instead he gets off in Recife and disappears. Why? The simplest answer is that Rio was only a smoke screen, that he never intended to come to Rio in the first place …”

“Hold it,” Wilson said. “He also got off in Recife quite openly. Surely he couldn’t have thought that you wouldn’t have discovered he left the plane here …”

“But he bought time,” Da Silva said quietly. “Twelve hours, at least.” He brushed the ash from his cigarette and continued. “Let’s go a bit further. His briefcase is found on a beach in Recife—” He looked at Pedroso. “How far up the beach was it found? I mean, how far from the center of the city? Or rather, from the airport?”

Pedroso frowned, calculating. “Two, three kilometers.”

“So did he walk there? Or did he ride there? Or did he even go there at all?” He seemed to be thinking aloud. “I suppose he actually went there himself, but how?” He looked at Pedroso again. “You checked taxis?”

“Naturally.” The short tubby man shook his head. “None of them showed a fare like that. As a matter of fact, only one taxi picked up a fare from that flight, and it was a woman, a Brazilian woman, and she went into the city. He didn’t take a taxi.”

Da Silva nodded. “So let’s assume he walked. Why? Why did he leave the airport and go to a deserted beach three kilometers away?”

“He could have been taken,” Wilson said slowly. “At gun point.”

Da Silva stared at him. “From a busy airport without anyone noticing? Without causing a fuss? And why should anyone take him from the airport at gun point? Or any other way? Because he was carrying a briefcase that held a fortune in bonds? Who would know it? Who would have been prepared to go through all the preparations to kidnap him when and if he decided to leave the plane at Recife?” He shook his head. “No, that explanation doesn’t satisfy me.”

“So what’s your answer?” Wilson demanded.

Da Silva crushed out his cigarette. “My answer is that he obviously thought the Brazilian police were a pretty stupid bunch of rurales. My answer is that he walked to the beach, left an empty briefcase for us to find, together with signs of violence, and then walked away. To leave the impression that he was attacked and robbed. And that he is now sitting somewhere, confident that in a short time we’ll stop scratching our thick heads and give up the search for his body—assuming we ever had the energy to search for his body in the first place. At which time he’ll come out of hiding and go wherever he wants to go. With his little bundle of bearer bonds intact.”

“And just how will he go with all means of leaving the city being watched by Lieutenant Pedroso, here?”

“That’s a question I don’t have an answer to, yet,” Da Silva admitted. “Either he feels the search won’t go on too long or he has a way to leave that we haven’t discovered—or that he thinks we haven’t discovered.”

“And of course he’ll go without his passport?” Wilson added sarcastically.

“Of course.” Da Silva’s eyebrows raised. “He has established the conditions for us to believe he is probably dead, and why would a dead man need a passport? And what better clue could he leave for idiotic policemen than his passport, since obviously nobody alive and wanting to travel would ever leave that important document?” He looked at Wilson curiously. “Don’t tell me that a man can’t get two passports, one in his own name and another in a different name. Because he can. And the second one is the one Mr. Martin is holding now.”

Wilson shook his head hopelessly. “You’ve got an answer for everything; you’ve got it all figured out. And you’re still wrong, you know.”

“I am? Where?”

“How would he know where to go? Why would he pick this part of the beach to stage his disappearance? Where would he hide in a strange place?”

Da Silva looked at him. “Has Martin ever been in Recife before?”

“No. He—”

“You haven’t seen him for six years and you know everywhere he’s been? You certainly didn’t sound that way when we were talking about him at Galeão this morning.”

Wilson rubbed his hand wearily over his face. “It’s true I don’t know. But I know Jimmy Martin and this whole thing is impossible.” His coffee had been untouched; he shoved the small cup from him almost angrily. “I don’t know how his briefcase came to the beach, or his passport, or why he left the plane at Recife, but I’m sure he had a good reason. And I’m also sure that something’s happened to him.” He suddenly turned to Pedroso. “Are your men looking for a body?”

Pedroso stared at turn from under the wide brim of his hat. “Senhor, my men are always looking for bodies. But in this part of the country bodies are fairly easy to hide. Still, most of them turn up eventually.” He frowned. “I must admit, though, Senhor Wilson, that what Zé says makes sense. In fact, the only explanation that makes sense.”

“To anyone who didn’t know Jimmy Martin,” Wilson said stubbornly. He started to rise. “Can we see the area on the beach where the briefcase and the passport were found?”

“Of course.” Pedroso came to his feet and tossed a bill on the table. Da Silva handed him the passport. He slipped it back into a stack of papers in a side pocket. “I have a car downstairs.”

The three men filed down the curved staircase. Pedroso took their baggage checks, handed them to a uniformed policeman at the door with instructions to have the bags held at the police office of the airport, and then led the way to the front of the building. His car, a Chevrolet that was easily eight years old, stood in the driveway; it was obvious from the careful way he inserted himself behind the wheel and the affectionate stroke he gave to the worn seat covers that it was the pride of his possessions. Da Silva slipped in beside him; Wilson climbed into the back. Lieutenant Pedroso waited tensely until the doors were closed, obviously fearing they would be slammed, and then with a profound sigh of relief at the gentle treatment the worn hinges received, leaned over and turned on the ignition.

They drove first in the direction of the city, and then turned off on the first road that led to the east. Concrete gave way to well-worn asphalt, generously pitted with signs of repair attempted and either abandoned or considered sufficient. The road curved dangerously, apparently without reason, leading ever downward through thick stands of banana plants and scrub palm in the direction of the sea below. Little houses peeped from the thick foliage that rose on both sides of the twisting road, their thatched roofs a startling series of brown patches against the wide variation of green that swayed about and above them. In places the walls of the huts could be seen, outer coverings of brown clay slapped haphazardly on interlaced skeletons of boughs. How much better, Da Silva thought, than the open-guttered galvanized tin sheds that made up the Rio slums. Here, at least, the steady ocean breeze was cool and refreshing, a pleasant change from the miasmic heat that baked the hillside favelas of Rio; and here a man could walk without crowds of his neighbors thrusting their misfortunes in his face at every turn.

The asphalt ended at the main beach road, a wide hard-packed sand avenue that stretched into the distance through two stately columns of tall palms. Pedroso braked momentarily, checked the road in both directions for potential traffic, and then turned into it, pressing down on the gas pedal.

He drove with the carefree insouciance that characterizes all Brazilians as soon as they get behind the wheel of any powered vehicle. God, after all, was a Brazilian, and would obviously handle any untoward consequences of excessive acceleration or erratic aim. They flashed along, passing the shuttered coconut stands that would open later in the afternoon for the influx of bathers. Wilson stared at them morosely. He knew the area well; he had spent a vacation in Recife once and had watched the coconuts being neatly sliced with a machete, and had drunk the milk laced with pinga many times. Happier days, then. He wondered if Recife would ever be the same for him again.

Pedroso suddenly nodded. “There’s the place. Up ahead.”

He braked even as he spoke. The car slithered on the smooth sand and came to a reluctant stop. He set the emergency and the three men descended and walked across the road to the beach. Two uniformed policemen seated on a log there sprang to their feet. Several hundreds of yards away, paying no attention to the group, several brown naked children splashed in the warm water of the lagoon, watched indulgently by their mothers; otherwise, the vast expanse of sand was deserted. Pedroso acknowledged the policemen’s salutes with a brusque nod of his head and pointed, speaking to the two men at his side.

“The attaché case was found here. After your call I drove out and looked around and then arranged for these men to stay here and keep people away.” He swung around. “The passport was found under the edge of that jangada, just lying on the sand.”

Wilson stared at the small boat drawn up high on the sand. The logs that made up its raftlike hull was worn smooth by their many bouts with the waves; the thin, bare mast seemed terribly fragile for the task assigned it. Yet Wilson knew that these frail craft made journeys to places as distant as Rio de Janeiro. It was not unusual for passengers on ocean liners to encounter jangadas far beyond the sight of land, bobbing recklessly between the towering rollers of the sea, the tanned fishermen who rode them looking as if they were standing ankle-deep on nothing but water.

He brought his eyes back to the spot where the attaché case had been found. A barely discernible darkish area marked the place. He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it. He was suddenly sure that Lieutenant Pedroso had checked the stain to be sure it was blood, and that the blood had been human. Which, he was equally sure, would make no great impression either on the dumpy police officer from Recife or on the tall, stubborn Da Silva.

He looked out to sea. In the distance, glittering like tiny chips of glass against the evenly pulsing sea, the white sails of other jangadas could be seen, rising and falling with the shallow, steady breathing of the ocean. His eyes followed their course, swept past them to the headland rising smoothly from the sea to the south, and then back along the shore, studying the dense tangle of brush that climbed the slopes to the plateau above. Where couldn’t a body be hidden in all that tortured jungle? Or in the sea, vaster still, churning threateningly against the hidden reef? Bodies lost beyond the reef were seldom recovered; they were all too often swept away and eventually eaten by the sharks. The few that had been found had been weighted down with lungs clogged with sand. He sighed and shook his head. What on earth did you get yourself involved in, Jimmy? Why did you allow this to happen to you? And where, alive or dead, are you right at this minute?

He turned back. Both Da Silva and Pedroso were watching him silently, and suddenly he knew that they had been watching him ever since they had arrived. He stared at them almost with resentment, as if they had somehow imposed unfairly on his privacy. When he spoke his voice was harsh; the words were almost as much a surprise to him as to the others.

“We’re wasting our time here, I’m sure that anything that has to be done in Recife can be handled well and efficiently by Lieutenant Pedroso. I want to get back to town and make some telephone calls or send some cables. And make a plane reservation. I’m going on to the States and find out what this is all about.”

Da Silva nodded. “I imagined you would. And I’m going with you.”

Wilson’s bitterness burst to the surface. “Why? You’re satisfied that Jimmy Martin is hiding somewhere around here. Why not find him or just wait until he comes out and grab him?”

“For several reasons,” Da Silva said. “One is that he stole those bonds to sell, and he certainly never intended to sell them here in Recife. He intended to return to the States and sell them there. And the second—or maybe the first—is that I have a feeling that Mr. Martin has already left our lovely country.”

“What?” Pedroso frowned at him. “He can’t have left Recife.”

Da Silva’s eyes turned toward the sea; his swarthy face was thoughtful. “He can, and I think he did. It’s just occurred to me why he picked this beach for his little act. And how he left.”

Pedroso stared at him in amazement and then suddenly understood. “You mean by jangada? You’re crazy!” He crossed himself. “I wouldn’t ride on one of. those things if my life depended on it!”

“You’re not Martin,” Da Silva reminded him. “You don’t have a fortune in negotiable bearer bonds on your person. And you haven’t worked on a foolproof scheme for a long time, a scheme that required, apparently, a trip on a jangada. I’m not only sure that it wouldn’t frighten him, but that it was a part of the plan from the first.”

Wilson snorted in disgust. “How you can fit anything that comes along into your preconceived notions is amazing. Pardon me, but I’m going to wait in the car.”

He turned and clumped across the road. Da Silva looked after him a moment and then turned back to Pedroso. “Is there any chance of checking up on the jangadas when they get back in?”

Pedroso started to jam his hands into his pockets, encountered them all already full, and clasped his hands across his large stomach instead. He looked down at his shoes as if ashamed to admit there was a branch of investigation in which the Recife police might not prove infallible.

“You have to understand about jangadeiros,” he said in an embarrassed manner. “In the first place, most of them aren’t registered, even though it’s the law. And they may beach their boats any place. And sometimes they’re gone for days on end.…” He looked up, finally getting to the root of the problem. “And they don’t talk; they don’t answer questions. For anybody.” His voice strengthened. “But at least we’ll give it a try.”

“Good.” Da Silva tried to sound encouraged, but it was a failure. He knew very well that if the solution to their case depended on information received from one of those taciturn fishermen—given to a policeman, of all people—then the chances were the case would not be solved. “Well, let’s get back to town.”

Pedroso glanced across to his car where Wilson was slumping dispiritedly against the cushions of the rear seat. He put his hand on Da Silva’s arm, looking up into the thin, mustached face from beneath the wide brim of his hat. He spoke quietly.

“Zé, from everything you told me when I last saw you in Rio, this Wilson is a good man and a good friend of yours. Yet you are being very duro with him.” He shrugged. “After all, he does know this Martin personally, and you and I don’t.”

Da Silya stared down into the round, earnest face. “Arnaldo, what are you trying to say?”

Lieutenant Pedroso wet his lips and continued to face Da Silva stubbornly. “I’m trying to tell you not to close your mind too much to what he says. He might be right, you know—and you might be wrong.”

Da Silva smiled and put his arms around the shoulders of the shorter man in a gesture both of friendliness and appreciation for the motives of the other. “I know he might be right,” he said quietly. “And I might be wrong. But at the moment he’s looking at the problem from a purely emotional standpoint rather than logically—”

Pedroso shook his head. “And even so, he could still be right and you could be wrong.”

“But you don’t believe it.”

Pedroso hesitated. “No, in truth, I don’t believe it.”

Da Silva laughed and pounded the other on the back. “Thank you for your faith. Now, if I can also be as sure of myself as you are, all will go well.”